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Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

nytimes.com

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Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#11

Post by coldtea »

sniddy wrote: post #3

truly laughable, also when your primary screen is a 27 inch 1080p wide panel display as he seems to have in the picture, you probably aren't feeling as constrained as most people with their 4 year old low res 15 inch laptops.

>truly laughable

I, and lots of others, find it quite reasonable. Any counter-arguments besides the quick dismissal?

>also when your primary screen is a 27 inch 1080p wide panel display as he seems to have in the picture, you probably aren't feeling as constrained as most people with their 4 year old low res 15 inch laptops

Well, I work on a 15 inch laptop and don't feel constrained. And lots of people work on 13" Macbook Airs and the like and feel quite focused and OK. It's not like it only applies to people with 27" monitors.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#13

Post by danielnaab »

This should be titled, "two big screens aren't better that one big screen." I've had multiple desktops with two 21" CRTs, back when that made you a fancy boy, and had considerable improvement in workflow from it. Now, with my 27" Thunderbolt monitor, I can't imagine the frustration of having to turn my head instead of move my eye to change my mind's focus.

This transition was after having done most of my development on a 15" laptop, and re-learning how to be productive without distractions... everyone's mileage will of course vary, so blanket statements are worthless.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#14

Post by coldtea »

msandford wrote: post #2

A news junkie finds out that distracting himself makes him less productive. From this we can conclude that ALL people who have two screens should forget the second one. Right.

Or, with a more charitable and less snarky reading, let's condlude that it's possible that "2 screens can be worse than one".

Or maybe that most people are "news junkies" that can benefit from less distractions, whether they believe it applies to them or not.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#15

Post by X-Istence »

coldtea wrote: post #8

I think 2 (or more) screen displays make sense for professionals who need the extra screen constantly up -- e.g music producers seeing both their DAW audio lanes and individual sequencer piano rolls, or video editors watching the video tracks, color controls etc on one monitor and a full screen of the movie in the other. For programmers not so much (even something like console output/build results you better decide w…

For me it is the ability to have my code up on one screen, and a debugger on the other. So that I can look at my debugger, and look at my code at the same time.

Or instead of a debugger, have a web browser with my current site, the web inspector, and my CSS so I can make modifications easily.

Programming with multiple monitors makes me a faster programmer as I am spending less time switching between applications.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#16

Post by cthalupa »

Meh.

What this article really means is "If you get distracted by things, keeping distractions up on more screens will make you more distracted."

I have my laptop screen and 3 extra monitors:

1) Email. I keep my main inbox very filtered - email that shows up there is important and I need to see it and read it asap

2) IRC/OCS. Work communication primarily happens through these, and much of it is important.

3) Browser open to our internal workflow tools / tabs for research

4) Laptop screen, closest to me out of all of these, where I have terminals open, etc.

I originally only had one extra display outside of the monitor, but my productivity /very/ measurably went up when I added more displays. No more hunting to find the window I wanted. Easy to reference things when talking to people. Easy to reference things when working on a server. etc etc etc.

So, like just about every tool out there, the usefulness is determined by the use case that prompted it, and how effectively you use it.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#17

Post by WalterSear »

coldtea wrote: post #8

I think 2 (or more) screen displays make sense for professionals who need the extra screen constantly up -- e.g music producers seeing both their DAW audio lanes and individual sequencer piano rolls, or video editors watching the video tracks, color controls etc on one monitor and a full screen of the movie in the other. For programmers not so much (even something like console output/build results you better decide w…

As a former professional musician and professional developer, I disagree. Creative work involves integrating large numbers of different items together at once - almost constantly, whether that is code or flows of audio.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#18

Post by enobrev »

cthalupa wrote: post #16

Meh. What this article really means is "If you get distracted by things, keeping distractions up on more screens will make you more distracted." I have my laptop screen and 3 extra monitors: 1) Email. I keep my main inbox very filtered - email that shows up there is important and I need to see it and read it asap 2) IRC/OCS. Work communication primarily happens through these, and much of it is important. 3) Browser o…

How are you using the three external monitors from a laptop? The reason I stick with a desktop is because I very heavily rely upon three monitors and haven't found any decent solutions to do so with a laptop. I'm using ubuntu, so I understand if the OS is a limitation, but I'd still love to hear about what you're using to make it work.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#19

Post by enobrev »

danielnaab wrote: post #13

This should be titled, "two big screens aren't better that one big screen." I've had multiple desktops with two 21" CRTs, back when that made you a fancy boy, and had considerable improvement in workflow from it. Now, with my 27" Thunderbolt monitor, I can't imagine the frustration of having to turn my head instead of move my eye to change my mind's focus. This transition was after having done most of my development…

I transitioned from three 19" monitors to two beautiful 27" monitors for about a year. I hated it. Nonetheless, I gave it a worthy shot and allowed myself to get used to it. Turns out, I'm most productive when I have at least three separate contexts, in which a single window (or a couple representative windows) can hold the full screen, without needing to worry about rearranging things.

Unfortunately, moving to a single screen of any size is debilitating by a large margin for me these days.

Re: Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One

#20

Post by honopu »

enobrev wrote: post #18
cthalupa wrote: post #16

Meh. What this article really means is "If you get distracted by things, keeping distractions up on more screens will make you more distracted." I have my laptop screen and 3 extra monitors: 1) Email. I keep my main inbox very filtered - email that shows up there is important and I need to see it and read it asap 2) IRC/OCS. Work communication primarily happens through these, and much of it is important. 3) Browser o…

How are you using the three external monitors from a laptop? The reason I stick with a desktop is because I very heavily rely upon three monitors and haven't found any decent solutions to do so with a laptop. I'm using ubuntu, so I understand if the OS is a limitation, but I'd still love to hear about what you're using to make it work.

I'm not who you asked, but I have:

2012 Retina macbook pro 15"

27" display port dell 24" display port dell 27" Samsung on hdmi to dvi cable.

It will run all 4 screens at once.

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